Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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This Last Offers To View Here, As In Saltzburg,
And On The Chain Of The Apennines, Broken And Steep Beds.
The
sandstone, on the contrary, wherever it is seated on the calcareous
rock, renders the aspect of the scene less wild.
The hills which it
forms appear more rounded, and the gentler slopes are covered with
a thicker mould.
In humid places, where the sandstone envelopes the Alpine
limestone, some trace of cultivation is constantly found. We met
with huts inhabited by mestizoes in the ravine of Los Frailes, as
well as between the Cuesta de Caneyes, and the Rio Guriental. Each
of these huts stands in the centre of an enclosure, containing
plantains, papaw-trees, sugar-canes, and maize. We might be
surprised at the small extent of these cultivated spots, if we did
not recollect that an acre planted with plantains* (* Musa
paradisiaca.) produces nearly twenty times as much food as the same
space sown with corn. In Europe, our wheat, barley, and rye cover
vast spaces of ground; and in general the arable lands touch each
other, wherever the inhabitants live upon corn. It is different
under the torrid zone, where man obtains food from plants which
yield more abundant and earlier harvests. In those favoured climes,
the fertility of the soil is proportioned to the heat and humidity
of the atmosphere. An immense population finds abundant nourishment
within a narrow space, covered with plantains, cassava, yams, and
maize. The isolated situation of the huts dispersed through the
forest indicates to the traveller the fecundity of nature, where a
small spot of cultivated land suffices for the wants of several
families.
These considerations on the agriculture of the torrid zone
involuntarily remind us of the intimate connexion existing between
the extent of land cleared, and the progress of society. The
richness of the soil, and the vigour of organic life, by
multiplying the means of subsistence, retard the progress of
nations in the paths of civilization. Under so mild and uniform a
climate, the only urgent want of man is that of food. This want
only, excites him to labour; and we may easily conceive why, in the
midst of abundance, beneath the shade of the plantain and
bread-fruit tree, the intellectual faculties unfold themselves less
rapidly than under a rigorous sky, in the region of corn, where our
race is engaged in a perpetual struggle with the elements. In
Europe we estimate the number of the inhabitants of a country by
the extent of cultivation: within the tropics, on the contrary, in
the warmest and most humid parts of South America, very populous
provinces appear almost deserted; because man, to find nourishment,
cultivates but a small number of acres. These circumstances modify
the physical appearance of the country and the character of its
inhabitants, giving to both a peculiar physiognomy; the wild and
uncultivated stamp which belongs to nature, ere its primitive type
has been altered by art. Without neighbours, almost unconnected
with the rest of mankind, each family of settlers forms a separate
tribe. This insulated state arrests or retards the progress of
civilization, which advances only in proportion as society becomes
numerous, and its connexions more intimate and multiplied. But, on
the other hand, it is solitude that develops and strengthens in man
the sentiment of liberty and independence; and gives birth to that
noble pride of character which has at all times distinguished the
Castilian race.
From these causes, the land in the most populous regions of
equinoctial America still retains a wild aspect, which is destroyed
in temperate climates by the cultivation of corn. Within the
tropics the agricultural nations occupy less ground: man has there
less extended his empire; he may be said to appear, not as an
absolute master, who changes at will the surface of the soil, but
as a transient guest, who quietly enjoys the gifts of nature.
There, in the neighbourhood of the most populous cities, the land
remains studded with forests, or covered with a thick mould,
unfurrowed by the plough. Spontaneous vegetation still predominates
over cultivated plants, and determines the aspect of the landscape.
It is probable that this state of things will change very slowly.
If in our temperate regions the cultivation of corn contributes to
throw a dull uniformity upon the land we have cleared, we cannot
doubt, that, even with increasing population, the torrid zone will
preserve that majesty of vegetable forms, those marks of an
unsubdued, virgin nature, which render it so attractive and so
picturesque. Thus it is that, by a remarkable concatenation of
physical and moral causes, the choice and production of alimentary
plants have an influence on three important objects at once; the
association or the isolated state of families, the more or less
rapid progress of civilization, and the individual character of the
landscape.
In proportion as we penetrated into the forest, the barometer
indicated the progressive elevation of the land. The trunks of the
trees presented here an extraordinary phenomenon; a gramineous
plant, with verticillate branches,* climbs, like a liana, eight or
ten feet high, and forms festoons, which cross the path, and swing
about with the wind. (* Carice, analogous to the chusque of Santa
Fe, of the group of the Nastusas. This gramineous plant is
excellent pasture for mules.) We halted, about three o'clock in the
afternoon, on a small flat, known by the name of Quetepe, and
situated about one hundred and ninety toises above the level of the
sea. A few small houses have been erected near a spring, well known
by the natives for its coolness and great salubrity. We found the
water delicious. Its temperature was only 22.5 degrees of the
centigrade thermometer, while that of the air was 28.7 degrees. The
springs which descend from the neighbouring mountains of a greater
height often indicate a too rapid decrement of heat. If indeed we
suppose the mean temperature of the water on the coast of Cumana
equal to 26 degrees, we must conclude, unless other local causes
modify the temperature of the springs, that the spring of Quetepe
acquires its great coolness at more than 350 toises of absolute
elevation.
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